Rajnath Singh advocates for addressing concerns of adolescent, youth population

New Delhi: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday advocated for creating an atmosphere where adolescent and youth population of the country is able to pursue their goals and excel in their chosen fields.

Inaugurating the World Population Day-2014 celebrations, Singh said there is an urgent need to address the concerns of adolescent and youth as India has one of the world's largest adolescent and youth population.

Singh said the total population of young persons in the age group of 10-24 years is about 36.50 crore, thus, every third person is young in the country.

He said the latest data has showed that every fifth person in the country is an adolescent in the age group 10-19 years.

The Minister said the theme of World Population Day 2014, 'Investing in Young People in India' is the best way to develop the competitive advantage for the country.

Singh said the census organisation has been following a data dissemination strategy which aims at developing a healthy camaraderie with all sections of data users, young and old, tech savvy or otherwise, both within the government or outside.

The Minister commended the support extended by UN agencies such as UNFPA and UNICEF to jointly produce software based modules CensusInfo India and YouthInfo India Portal, which he inaugurated on Thursday.

He hoped that the panel discussions organised on this occasion will be productive and useful for researchers and policy makers.

Meanwhile, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju mentioned about the importance of the census data with its linkages to the theme - Investing in Young People in India.

He said the government is committed towards e-governance and digitisation of data for its users.

Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami, representatives of UNFPA and UNICEF in India and Registrar General and Census Commissioner C Chandramouli also spoke on the occasion.

The representatives of UN agencies thanked the RGI and the Government of India for bringing them together on the issues of youth and their development in India.